


Wish & Payment

by Gio_hannigram



Series: Life and Death [2]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: ? - Freeform, Angst, But who does he miss more, Doumeki has a wish, Doumeki just wants to protect Watanuki, Happy Ending, Implied Relationships, M/M, Poor Doumeki, Poor watanuki, Watanuki misses Yuuko, douwata - Freeform, mention of other characters, unbeta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9697811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gio_hannigram/pseuds/Gio_hannigram
Summary: Watanuki has a special gift every year.One night in which Doumeki visits.But this time Doumeki has a wish.All because he doesn't want his Watanuki gone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta.  
> Beware mistakes, typos, etc.
> 
> This is set many decades after "The Gift" fic.

Today is not Doumeki´s day, that alone is quite unfair if you remember he only has one each year. One could at least wish that it would be a good one. This is the first time he stays more than twenty four hours so he thinks it was bound to happen.

 

_Wish_

What a complicated yet simple word.

Of course, Doumeki has always been a simple kind of human, even if Watanuki would argue the opposite to be true.

If he needed to know something he knew he would eventually know it; just as it was with the shop he was currently sitting on, he did not see it until he needed to, until he needed a wish of his own, because it does not matter how Watanuki thinks of it, still thinks of it, he wished it because he selfishly needed Watanuki to live.

Still, seeking and forcing things always got people to unfavorables conclusions.

But now he was in the other side of the coin, What happens when you know something and deny said knowledge?

He knows he has a wish, he knows he needs to ask for it but he is not ready to pay the price, not yet.

Wishing to save Watanuki´s life was simple, he knew he would pay the price, any price to stop him from disappear.

This time it is complicated, to say the least. He has never done everything or anything in his hands to make Watanuki happy. In Doumeki´s opinion it mattered very little whenever he was the one making Watanuki happy or not, as long as he was safe, if he did as Watanuki pleased, Watanuki would have died long ago for his first desire was to have Doumeki away and stay close to Konogi. Watanuki would have died on a matter of days.

No, Watanuki´s happiness had never been on his hands to nourish.

Now he wonders why he cares. Now that it seems irrelevant.

Watanuki is miserable, he has a right to be even if he himself has caused his own pain.

For a strange reason Doumeki cares.

It was not because he loves Watanuki, he did from the beginning and Doumeki has suffered through the transformation of Watanuki into something that barely reminds him of the boy he had decided to protect at all costs once. That love has not faded but there is something different.

Doumeki looks back at the expensive sheets twisted across Watanuki´s body and his throat forms a tight knot. Watanuki looks too much like _her._

It bothers him how many emotions he is feeling, stoic as Watanuki calls him, he does feel, and today of all days he wishes he didn´t.

 

_Why does it have to be you?!_

 

The question echoes in his head and it makes his heart ache. Watanuki´s voice had never been so painful to remember.

As used as Doumeki is to Watanuki screaming at him, cursing him, insulting him and what he once thought was swearing disgust at him, as used as he is to Watanuki wishing it was someone else he had to share his time with since the moment they meet, be it Konogi or _her,_ for the first time in a long time, it hurt.

Doumeki had been surprised at his own reveal of emotion, no wonder why Watanuki stopped yelling and stared at him. The memory was not helping.

 

They had been having dinner a few minutes after he appeared in the middle of the shop. Watanuki had not cried much this time, they had moved on quickly from the shock that, yes, Doumeki had appeared for another year, they had one more day.

Octopus-shaped sausages were making his mouth water and he had taken more, it was nothing new that Watanuki started yelling at him right away, something about manners, him being a bottomless hole and ungratefulness, but in the middle of his old rant that question had left Watanuki's lips and Doumeki had frozen, his sausage fell back to his dish, a cold shiver rushed through his skin, reminding him that for a day he was human again, for a day he felt again, for a day, it hurt.

Watanuki kept on with his rant for a moment then noticed Doumeki´s behaviour, namely he probably had noticed that Doumeki had stopped eating and Watanuki looked like he was about to ask what was wrong when realization showed on his face and Doumeki´s heart ached.

Awkward silence settled and Watanuki struggled in front of him, Doumeki could tell that Watanuki was thinking of the best way to apologize, but by the time Watanuki´s lips parted and the apology started to elaborate Doumeki rose his hand shutting him off. There was no point for Watanuki to apologize for something they both knew was a legit question in his mind, and as much as it stung him, Doumeki knew that if given a say on whose Watanuki wanted to be the one sitting where Doumeki was... Watanuki would have _not choose_ **_him._**

They both knew who Watanuki truly wished for.

Who he was waiting for.

They had gone way too long denying that truth.

Leaving a sigh out Doumeki turned back to stare at the garden of the shop, the darkness starting to be consumed by a red-orange light announcing the sun´s wakefulness settling a dreading feeling in his stomach.

There was a talk to be have and a wish to be make. He knew that Watanuki was going to refuse it but he would have to oblige.

Doumeki is feeling too much and he wishes he could do what he always does and let it go.

For how long has he been avoiding this?

 

Watanuki wakes up and stares at him for a second then takes his glasses cleans them, and puts them on, Doumeki sees the many emotions running through Watanuki, through surprise is still the most remanent.

“Doumeki? Why are you still here?” Watanuki whispers and gets close setting a hand on Doumeki's cheek to make sure that, yes, it is real.

“I'm here.” That's not all of it but Watanuki’s smile distracts him and the rest gets lost in his throat.

He'll tell him after breakfast, they can have one last peaceful meal.

There's a certain amount of self-loading that comes with loving someone you know will never love you back. A regretful “Why do I do this to myself?”

Doumeki has been avoiding it for decades, even when he knows is not only his life the one he affected, every single one of his descendants has the same curse: love Watanuki, marry someone you don't love, and give the next generation to look after him. He's very aware that the patron has been repeating, and avoids to think of how many like him, died just outside the shop wishing it could be different for their sons, yet not regretting it for Watanuki's sake.

It is cruel, and unfair, but that's how things were, he decided long ago to stop asking why he fell for Watanuki, there's no point in wonder, just like there's no point in wondering why Watanuki's love can't belong to him. Why there has to be a third part, and when will the game end?

He knows Watanuki has some kind of love for him and that it'll never rival hers. He supposes that some is better than nothing and wonders when his maturity disappeared.

“Are you going to stay from now on?” Watanuki asks after lunch and is a miracle that he held on for almost half a day.

“No.” Doumeki answers and enjoys the following yells, Watanuki's rant.

Doumeki spends the rest of the day pretending that everything is alright.

Ten minutes before midnight he sits in from of Watanuki and traces his face, nods. It's time.

Doumeki has never hated something as much as he hates Watanuki's table for clients. As he takes his place Watanuki stares from the couch and goes paler. He let's an “oh” fall from his lips and walks to sit in front of Doumeki.

“If you are here is because you have a wish, there are no coincidences, everything is hitzusen and we were meant to have this conversation.” Watanuki says and Doumeki is not sure if hearing Watanuki's speech to his clients directed at him makes him feel anger or awe.

“I want for the person you truly love and want, to be appearing in your birthday instead of me, until they are reincarnate.”

Watanuki stares at him with tears rolling from his eyes.

“You don't...You can't do this again! Why can't you wish something for yourself Doumeki?!”

“Why can't you understand that you should no question it?” Doumeki asks calming his own heart.

“The price is too high Doumeki, I'll never see you again!”

They both freeze on place, Watanuki's last line hitting them both.

 _So that's what heartbreak feels like._ Doumeki thought absently.

He thought his heart was broken this whole time but apparently there was still space for more damage to be made.

Well is not something to be surprised at, that it hurts when an unspoken truth comes up. He already knows and _yet_.

“Well, perhaps that's for the best.” And it is to cut wings before it gets worse, if it can.

“There has to be another way, I need you. I need to see you, to know that you're okay.”

Doumeki knows Watanuki needs to know about him but he doesn't know if he'll want to know about Watanuki anymore, after all, the one that Watanuki loves won't be, Doumeki already feels too out of character and after this is all done who knows if there'll be a single piece that's still him.

“I don't want you to disappear.” Doumeki answers, and is the truth, each year he comes back and each year the Watanuki he knows fades more and more, he can't stand the thought of returning to find Watanuki absolutely gone and see just a carcase of _her._

There's a tear threatening to fall from Doumeki. He only wants this to be over.

“The price?”

Watanuki looks at him as if he's about to kill him and he can't blame him.

It was a good game, pretending that it was ok.

“Your…” Watanuki stops and takes a deep breath. “Your most important relationship.”

Doumeki takes in a deep breath and tries to take comfort by telling himself that what he is feeling is not half of what Syaoran felt at hearing the same words.

He nods and stands.

Walks over to Watanuki and cleans the tears from his cheeks.

“Wait for her, don't disappear.”

Doumeki kisses Watanuki one last time and everything fades to black.

 

For twenty years Watanuki waits, most of them not allowing the current grandson of Doumeki to enter the shop.

For twenty years he waits the night of his birthday and it takes him two hours after the midnight of the twenty one to realize, as he stares shocked at the Bento going cold,  that he was waiting for Doumeki this whole time.

 

Watanuki wishes that Doumeki could heard him curse him in the other side.

 

Twenty-Two years later after the last time he saw Doumeki feel like a hundred.

That night, after Doumeki's last bloodline owner leaves Watanuki feeling a dread sensation when he notices that the current Doumeki is close to his wedding day, midnight announces the start of winter and the door of the shop opens.

Watanuki’s birthday is far away, yet his eyes  meet with a painfully familiar par, Twenty-Two years old ones.

 

“Doumeki.” He whispers thankful as tears roll down his cheeks and happiness fills him for the first time.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> I choose to let it ambiguous.
> 
> Whoever was the one that Watanuki saw the eyes of, is your choice.
> 
> And if you want to share it, remember I love kudos and comments.


End file.
